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III.

The obstacles which William might expect to encounter on English ground, though the least formidable of the obstacles which stood in the way of his design, were yet serious. He felt that it would be madness in him to cross the sea with a few British adventurers, and to trust to a general rising of the population. It was necessary, and it was pronounced necessary by all those who invited him over, that he should carry an army with him. Yet who could answer for the effect which the appearance of such an army might produce? The government was indeed justly odious. But would the English people be inclined to look with favour on a deliverer who was surrounded by foreign soldiers?

IV.

Within doors the travellers were warm, the houses being close, the walls thick, the lights small, and the glass all double. The food was chiefly the flesh of deer, cured in the season, bread good enough, but baked as biscuit, dried fish of several sorts, and occasionally pieces of mutton and buffalo, which is pretty good meat. All the stores of winter provisions are laid up in summer. Their drink was water mixed with a little spirit, and, for a treat, wine instead of beer, which, however, the people possess of good quality. The hunters, who venture abroad in all weather, frequently brought in fine venison, and sometimes bear's flesh, which, however, was not much esteemed. The visitors had a good stock of tea, with which they treated their friends, and they lived cheerfully and well, all things considered. It was now March, the days had grown considerably longer, and the weather at least tolerable, so the travellers began to prepare sledges to carry them over the snow, and to get things in order for the journey.

V.

While I sat thus, I found the air overcast and grow cloudy, as if it would rain; soon after that the wind rose, by little and little, so that in less than half an hour it blew a most dreadful hurricane: the sea was all on a sudden covered with foam and froth, the shore was covered with the breach of the water, the trees were torn up by the roots, and a terrible storm it was; and this held about three hours, and then began to abate, and in two hours more it was stark calm, and began to rain very hard. All this while I sat upon the ground very much terrified and dejected, when on a sudden it came into my thoughts that these winds and rains being the consequences of the earthquake, the earthquake itself was spent and over, and I might venture into my cave again. With this thought my spirits began to revive, and the rain also helping to persuade me, I went in and sat down in my tent, but the rain was so violent that my tent was ready to be beaten down with it, and I was forced to go into my cave, though very much afraid and uneasy for fear it should fall on my head.

vi.

The only stars that rise and set at the Pole are the planets of the solar system, and their risings and settings, like those of the sun and moon, are not for a few hours but for months or years at a time. The fixed stars, on the other hand, never rise or set. Once in twenty-four hours they describe circles in the heavens, of which the Pole-star is the centre. Those near the horizon move in large circles; those higher up in smaller ones. The Pole-star itself describes so small a circle, that our eyes cannot detect its motion. The explanation of these curious sights is simple enough. Every point on the earth's surface is describing a circle round the Pole. If, therefore, one were to stand at that centre, he would see everything on the earth moving round him. But the Pole is

a point so small, that if a traveller covered it with his foot, he would, in the course of a day, make a complete revolution round himself.

VII.

The climate of Canada presents great extremes of heat and cold, especially in the lower or eastern part of the province. The seasons of spring, summer, and autumn are included between the months of May and September; in October the frosts begin, and during November and the first three weeks of December snowstorms are incessant. After this period the atmosphere clears, an intense and dry frost succeeds, and continues until April or May, during the whole of which time the sky is serene and of a bright azure hue. Throughout this long winter the ground is buried under a hard covering of ice and frozen snow. The snow begins to melt in April, and has all disappeared by the first week in May. Summer is then fully established, and the vegetation breaks forth in profuse luxuriance. In the upper or western portion of Canada, particularly in the country which borders on the great lakes, the climate is much less extreme, and the winter of shorter duration. In all parts of the country the air is dry and healthy, fogs are almost unknown, and the cold of winter is rendered less severe in its effects by the general absence of wind during the greatest intensity of the frost.

VIII.

My mental ruminations, notwithstanding my assumed confidence, were not always of an unchequered nature. The Muse-the very coquette who had led me into this wilderness-like others of her sex, deserted me in my utmost need ; and I should have been reduced to rather an uncomfortable state of dulness, had it not been for the occasional conversation of strangers who chanced to pass the same way. But the characters whom I met with were of a uniform and uninteresting description. Country parsons, jogging home

wards after a visitation; farmers or graziers, returning from a distant market; clerks of traders, travelling to collect what was due to their masters in provincial towns; with now and then an officer going down into the country upon recruiting service, were, at this period, the persons by whom the turnpikes and tapsters were kept in exercise.

IX.

The constitutions of the Britons were so good, that they frequently lived a hundred and twenty years. This length of days was probably owing to their sobriety and temperance, as much or more than to the wholesomeness of the air. The use of clothes was scarce known in the island. None but the inhabitants of the southern coasts covered their nakedness with the skins of wild beasts, carelessly thrown over them. By way of ornament, they made incisions in their bodies in the shape of flowers, trees, and animals, which, with the juice of woad, they painted of a sky-colour, that never wore out. They lived in woods, in huts covered over with skins, boughs, or turf. Their usual food was milk, and flesh got by hunting, their woods and plains being well stocked with game. They did not eat fish, though the rivers and seas that surrounded them were plentifully stored with them. Their towns, or rather villages, were only a confused parcel of huts placed at a little distance from each other, without any order or distinction of streets. They generally stood in the middle of a wood, the avenues of which were defended by slight ramparts of earth, or with the trees that were felled to clear the ground.

X.

King Richard III., soon after his coronation, set out with his queen and only son, then about eight years old, on a royal progress through the kingdom; and it is conjectured that the murder of the two young princes in the Tower was perpetrated during his absence from London on this occasion.

When the court arrived at York, the king, to gain popularity amongst the people who flocked there in great numbers to see him, entertained them with the ceremony of a coronation, and was crowned in the cathedral at that city a second time. But while he was thus making a parade of his royalty, a plot was already brewing to deprive him of it. The Bishop of Ely had been committed to the custody of the Duke of Buckingham. That shrewd prelate soon saw that though the duke had received great rewards from the king, he yet wanted more, and that resentment and discontent were rankling in his mind. The bishop accordingly found no difficulty in persuading the duke, notwithstanding he had so greatly contributed to the exalting of Richard, to join in a conspiracy formed for deposing him, and for placing Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, on the throne.

XI.

Perhaps there never arose in this country, not in any country, a man of more pointed and finished wit; and (where his passions were not concerned) of a more refined, exquisite, and penetrating judgment. If he had not so great a stock, as some have had who flourished formerly, of knowledge long treasured up, he knew better by far than any man I ever was acquainted with, how to bring together within a short time all that was necessary to establish, to illustrate, and to decorate that side of the question he supported. He stated his matter skilfully and powerfully. He particularly excelled in a luminous explanation and display of his subject. His style of argument was neither trite and vulgar, nor subtle and abstruse. He hit the house between wind and water, and not being troubled with too anxious a zeal for any matter in question, he was never more tedious or more earnest than the pre-conceived opinions and present temper of his hearers required; to whom he was always in perfect unison. He conformed exactly to the temper of the house; and he seemed to guide, because he was always sure to follow it.

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